


Wrists Don't Lie

by if420fireflies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Betrayal, Chocolate, Complicated Relationships, Dark Mark (Harry Potter), Death Eaters, F/F, Getting Together, Hogwarts Era, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Lies, Morally Ambiguous Character, Non-Linear Narrative, One Shot, Punk Rock, Scarves, Young Death Eaters, ginny is tired, never trust someone who eats your chocolates, no beta we die like men, the most unironic never gonna give you up reference you'll ever see, what it says on the tin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27714629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/if420fireflies/pseuds/if420fireflies
Summary: What happens when a compulsive liar (one Pansy Parkinson) meets an immovable truth (new ink on her wrist)?Ginny Weasley finds out.
Relationships: Pansy Parkinson & Ginny Weasley, Pansy Parkinson/Ginny Weasley
Kudos: 9





	Wrists Don't Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Additional tag in end notes.
> 
> I'm a sucker for both non-linear plots and Death Eater reveals, so here we are! Thank you in advance for reading.

14\. 

_Do you trust me, darling?_

This is the last time.

A few seconds of silence.

Then Pansy rolled her sleeve back down, cuffed it neatly into place, smiled. Had the nonchalance to blow Ginny a kiss as she stood there frozen. And then Ginny didn’t know anything at all.

Well, at the least she should have known better than to trust a liar. 

But in truth, the way Pansy dissembled and pretended and spun stories until everyone was dizzy was all Ginny had ever loved about her. 

The way she glittered like iron pyrite underwater, or an anglerfish light, or the gloss-slick messiness of the everywhere-mouth that whispered, “only yours.”

_Of course I trust you, sweetheart!_

1\. 

_You know the rules,_

Trifling things like rules and promises and integrity had never meant much to Pansy, even before she knew Ginny.

One day in the split third/fourth-year Potions lesson, Pansy smiled ruefully in front of the class, hands red with the ink of someone else’s Potions assignment, and spun a tale so elaborately believable, so obviously false, that Slughorn ended up stupefied enough to clap her on the back and tell her not to worry about it. Then she turned to grin at everyone with lips stained the same cherry shade, and flounced back to her seat across from Ginny. A papery, ripped malachite-green scarf that looked like it had cost as much as Ginny’s yearly allowance trailed after her. Her robe sleeves were rucked up (pinned up?) to her elbows, revealing slim, pretty wrists.

Two-thirds of the way through Slughorn’s lecture that day, she suddenly seemed to notice the fact that Ginny existed. They'd been desk mates since September.

Pansy stared at her left ear.

Then she leaned over to Ginny for the first time, as though it were something she did every day. She reached a hand up to Ginny’s neck, cocking her head as if to ask permission. When Ginny didn't move she pressed something into her ear. Ginny resisted the urge to draw her wand.

A rubber-coated string travelled from the earpiece and linked into a metal box Pansy held in her lap, which she poked at with an air of intense suspicion and then Disillusioned. A preppy Rick Astley song started to play lowly into Ginny's ear. Pansy jammed the other piece in her own ear and tapped her fingers against their desk in time.

“I thought Muggle technology was against Hogwarts regulations.”

Pansy turned back to her with wide eyes, then smirked, her dark eyeshadow gleaming paradoxically.

That class, she left a finger on Ginny’s shoulder just a second too long, and leaned close just a fraction too far, and smiled just a little too fiercely.

A few rules Ginny was always painfully aware of: Girls don’t like other girls. Girls don’t want other girls. Girls don’t even _look_ at other girls, not in a boarding school in the 90s.

They were brought to the forefront of her mind then, despite the fact that she was thinking about a Slytherin, someone she should not want at all, someone who lied and cheated and was probably a blood supremacist.

Or maybe because of those facts.

Pansy didn’t seem to be aware of any rules at all.

“We can keep this to ourselves, yeah?”, said slowly, as the hand slipped off her shoulder.

_And so do I._

4.

_Honesty is an expensive gift,_

By fifth year, Pansy had set up a casual sort of camp in Ginny’s dorm.

“Hey, Pansy, do you know who ate all my chocolate?”

“Chocolate?” Pansy looked up at her with wide brown eyes the same colour as their subject, swinging her black leather-clad legs back and forth over the edge of Ginny’s bed. “No idea.”

“I had a box out. They were pretty nice ones, too.”

“It was probably Romilda,” Tori supplied.

“Yeah, probably.”

Pansy flopped onto the carpet with a certain revealingly guilty flair.

Un-fucking-believable.

“Pansy. Parkinson. Was it you?”

“Maybe,” she replied, slowly beginning to smirk up a storm.

“Pansy- okay, you know _what?_ That’s fine. Was going to give them to you anyways.”

“Sorry,” Pansy replied from the floor.

A week later, Pansy left four boxes of the same chocolates on Ginny’s bed, apologized solemnly, tucked Ginny’s hair behind her ear, and kissed her between the curtains of the bed under a _Muffliato_ until she was thoroughly forgiven.

_Don’t expect it from cheap people._

3\. 

_Won’t you be expensive,_

In fourth year, Pansy continued to wear startling, beautiful scarves, which contrasted flagrantly with her ratty Hogwarts uniform. She also spent a lot of time leaning against corridor walls, playing with the hems of her robe sleeves, following Ginny around, biting her lip, and generally doing her best to look as distracting as possible. One day, Ginny snapped.

“Alright. Parkinson. If we’re doing this-”

“And we are.”

“Okay, yeah, whatever. I need ground rules if I'm getting involved with a-" Ginny paused.

"Slytherin, I think, is the term you want."

"Yes. That. So, dear Slytherin, I don’t want to hear anything about blood purity.”

“Deal." Pansy said immediately, and grinned like a cat. "I’m not even that bad with the pureblood supremacy thing.”

“Two, I don’t want to hear anything about you getting involved with the Death Eaters.”

Pansy snorted like that was the most ridiculous idea in the world. “Easy, my parents would be mortified if I ever, Merlin forbid, actually took a side. _And_ I'd never, ever want to be part of- _that._ ” She spat the word.

“Cool."

“Anything else?”

“No, I can deal with everything else. I hope?"

Pansy smiled at her.

"Well, I'll let you know if I need more.”

“Fair enough.” Pansy pushed off her current wall and flashed something intense and wanting through her eyes. Ginny knew she had done it on purpose, calculated it for effect, but lost the ability to think in terms of anything other than _Pansy Parkinson_ anyways.

_Expensive for me._

7\. 

_Hm. But you know what they say_

Sixth year: “Gin, I'm not working with them. They're _Mud_ bloods.”

_About what rules were made for, darling._

5.

_And you know,_

“You’re a Slytherin. You’re not even allowed to be in our dorms,” Romilda said.

“She’s just a friend,” Ginny interjected.

“Did I imply anything else?" Romilda glanced suspiciously at her for a second, but to Ginny's relief quickly returned to her verbal attack. "What I don’t get is how the hell you could have made friends with someone like _her._ ”

Pansy stretched luxuriously, opened an eye, wrapped the fringe of her pale rose scarf around her finger, and kicked her Doc Martens onto the frame of Romilda's bed. She then proceeded to spin a yarn that rivalled the scope of overambitious young adult novel worldbuilding, and the emotional depth of a tearjerker soap opera. Ginny was sure half of it was borrowed directly from the story of how Hermione befriended Ron, that Ginny had told her the other day. But Pansy added several soliloquies that definitely hadn't been in Ginny's original recount, a significant plot point about a baby dragon, multiple lengthy descriptions of Ginny saving Pansy from attempted Love Potions, and no less than six murders. (She did not include any of the times she and Ginny whispered in abandoned classrooms and kissed on windy open tower roofs.)

But by the end of it all, Romilda was swaying on her feet, as if she herself had been dosed with love potion. She looked as though she was struggling to choose between pointing out the obvious falsehoods in Pansy's narrative and declaring her immediate and undying devotion for Pansy.

Pansy had that kind of effect on people.

_I’ll break them for you, too._

2.

_Just kiss me._

The first time was after a Quidditch match in June of third year, where the Slytherin team had absolutely destroyed them. Ginny spent just a few minutes too many sulking in the Gryffindor locker room.

Pansy traipsed in, wearing soft tawny leather boots and a crumpled cream silk scarf tossed over her uniform, looking amused. Made some snide comments about Ginny’s lacklustre performance. Dodged Ginny’s half-hearted hexes with a patronizing eyebrow. 

Inched closer and closer until Ginny could no longer pass off her proximity as an intimidation tactic. Gave her more (bad, amateur, and wildly incorrect) Quidditch advice. Trapped her against the wall with slender arms, pretty and bare. Watched as Ginny went waiting, still, under her.

Cast a privacy spell, a Muffliato, a Disillusionment Charm. Pressed her lips against Ginny’s mouth for the first time, as though it were something she did every day.

Fuck if it wasn’t worth it, all of it, just for that one kiss in fourth year.

_And you’ll see how important I am._

6\. 

_There’s distance in your eyes._

[Fifth year: Pansy rocked punk rock outfits. Chokers, leather miniskirts tucked under robes, chains, as much as she could get away with.

But she always also wore her scarves, the delicate expensive ones, the ones that clashed horribly with the rest of her outfit no matter what she was wearing.

“You look so good in that tank top,” Ginny whispered.

“Aw, thanks, darling!”

“Don’t say _that_ so _loud_ , there’s people around.”

“You’re not so brave for a Gryffindor, huh?”

“You’re not so proper for a pureblood.”

Pansy smiled at her. “Of course not.”]

_I’ve said too much._

7.5 

_September 1, sixth year:_

“You said you wouldn’t use that word. 'Mudblood'. You promised.”

But Ginny didn't point that out, not out loud.

4.5, 5.5, 6.5 

_7:56p.m. November 17, fifth year, Floo-call recording:_

“Oh, Weasley, _there_ you are. Thank fuck. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do without you.” A clasped hand as they reached through the fireplace grate to each other.

_2:32p.m. February 24, fifth year, Floo-call recording:_

“I love you. You know I mean that, really _mean_ it, right, Gin? ...aw, wait, sorry, I've got to switch connections. Parkinson family Floo-request coming through.” An eye roll, then a teal cotton scarf floating into Ginny's dorm through the fireplace, discarded, still body-heat warm.

_11:47p.m. May 3, fifth year, Floo-call recording:_

“Darling, Gin, how are y- wait, oh Morgana and Merlin, she's sent _another_ Howler. Good grief. Excuse me for a second. You look beautiful today, by the way.” A charming grin, then a hasty flick of a wand.

8\. 

~~ _you know I’m on tonight ~~_

Ginny did her coursework and won her Quidditch games and went to Hogsmeade with Tori, but really, all she could think about was Pansy’s sleeves.

Pansy hated long sleeves. Something about it being a waste to hide “arms this gorgeous” and her love for what she called “the meretriciousness of elegance,” which apparently involved showing as much skin as possible one day and wearing three layers of green trench coats the next.

She wore nothing but long-sleeved shirts with the buttons done up throughout sixth year. No chokers, no tank tops or coats. And no scarves.

Ginny hadn’t seen the insides of her arms in months. 

She knew Pansy was lying. She always knew.

_~~ you know my wrists don’t lie-_

9.

_Honesty (_

Sixth year: “Pansy? You said your family would never even think of pressuring you into joining the Death Eaters, right? You promised you'd never want to, too.”

“Yeah, I did. Why?”

_) is the highest form of intimacy._

9.5

"Darling!"

"...Pansy."

10\. 

_Do you trust me? {_

“Pansy. Look. Just show me your wrist and we can be done with this.”

“No.”

“I won’t be mad.”

“You know I really don’t have the Mark, right?”

“Pansy.”

_} Let me lie to you, darling._

11\. 

_Iron pyrite under water:_

And then Pansy unbuttoned her sleeve, and Ginny saw the thin lines of metallic black snaking and sculling their way across the wrist that Pansy had once so loved to flaunt. They were damp with water, as if Pansy had tried to wash the ink off, the same way she’d washed off her red, pen-stained hands with those pretty words of hers. But of course it wouldn’t wash off. 

Pansy had been always so proud of her arms. She barely let anyone so much as touch them, let alone permanently mark them. So face to face with the evidence, Ginny did think for a blissful moment that it was a prank. Maybe a temporary tattoo, maybe some new-fangled costume charm, but definitely just another grand, tall, fake story.

12\. 

_Anglerfish’s lure:_

The Dark Mark glimmered prettily in the dark bathroom like the inverse of a paradox, like a lie in masquerade, like a double negative. Like truth.

12.5

Too bad Pansy hadn’t become a Death Eater while she was in her punk rock phase, Ginny thought hysterically. The skull-and-snake tattoo would have been the perfect accessory to the black tank tops she was so fond of. Unlike her scarves.

Pansy, always making promises she had no intentions of delivering on.

What good could someone like her, all glamour and absurdity, be to the Dark Lord? What use could Voldemort have for Pansy fucking Parkinson? How would someone who lied the way she lied, wild flourishes and barely even pretending at truth, do in a group where the punishment for treason was whatever the Dark Lord felt like watching at the moment?

Pansy had lied to her. Of course she had. And in fact, Ginny had also lied. Because she _was_ mad. So furious it swirled up within her and dragged all other emotion down with it like water down a drain, leaving an abscess, emptiness, nausea, disgust.

She wanted to punch Pansy in her ink-marred arm. She wanted to touch her. She wanted to grab her by the wrist and stop her from ever walking away again. She wanted to scream at her, ramble, tell her it wasn't too late, but why didn't you tell me earlier, I could have helped (was it your parents' ambitions?), you tell me I make you feel better (was it your own unfaltering choice?), I'll kiss your still-gorgeous wrist (I don't actually care which it was), I'll do anything, I _mean_ that, really mean it, please, do you remember that time you almost fell off the roof and I caught you with the tip of my broom and we were too scared to even breathe an inch over the battlements for _weeks,_ Pansy?

Darling?

But it was all water down a drain. And it was far, far too late.

13.

_Everybody’s lips:_

“Ginevra. I wish you had let me lie to you.” (Unspoken and unheard: I could have hid it from you for months more. We could have had _months_ more.)

"Had let you- had let you. Pansy, sweetheart, love, baby- _darling,_ are you even sorry?" (Unthought and unknown: No, sweetheart, we couldn't have.)

14\. 

Pansy rolled her sleeve back down, cuffed it neatly into place. Smiled by way of answer, not even pretending at truth. Blew Ginny a kiss, and walked away into the quiet, ravenous depths of night.

15.

And that was the last time Pansy Parkinson bared her arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional tag: Pansy Parkinson is a Death Eater
> 
> Fic title is taken from Shakira - "Hips Don't Lie". A friend told me it was a terrible idea so of course I had to do it. Just want to say that this is fiction and by no means a representation of a healthy relationship. Lying has consequences both within this story and outside of it (obviously), and I have no intentions of condoning or romanticizing lying to your partner! honest communication >>>>
> 
> Thank you for reading! This was a lot of fun to write. (Comments, kudos or concrit would absolutely make my day) <3


End file.
